Rams sending seven to state wrestling meet

Seven Glenwood wrestlers punched tickets to the state wrestling meet Saturday.

The Rams’ Ace Cochrane, Brody Black, Joseph Leick, Nile Lundvall, Mason Koehler and Drake Buthe all won their respective weight classes and Jacob Aust finishes as a runner-up at the Class 2A District Wrestling Meet in Glenwood Saturday to qualify for this week’s Iowa State Wrestling Tournament Des Moines.

The state tournament opens Wednesday with Class 3A matches at the Casey’s Center in Des Moines. 

The Rams and Class 2A competition commences Thursday at 2:30 p.m.

The Rams, wrestling on their own mat, captured their first district title since 2018 and the first for head coach Tucker Weber. Their team score bested their Hawkeye 10 Conference rival Atlantic, 202.5 to 184.5. The Trojans qualified eight wrestlers for state. The top two individual place winners at districts qualify for state.

“The district title is kind of an interesting award because there are only eight teams and it’s different each year,” Weber said. “But it’s always exciting to get another banner and hang it up in the gym. That’s two to the collection for this year. Hopefully we get another one next week.”

Glenwood entered districts with nine wrestlers seeded No. 1 or 2 in their weight classes and seven reached state. Four made it from Glenwood a year ago.

“We got the ones we were kind of expecting,” Weber said. “We left a couple out there. If you’re looking at seeds, we had nine one and two seeds and then we didn’t have anybody lower than a two seed get through. We kind of expected anywhere between six and nine and seven happened.”

Koehler and Buthe were again “pin machines” for the Rams.

Koehler, the defending state champion at 215 pounds, needed just 1:09 on the mat in his two wins, his last coming over Atlantic’s Travin Thomas in 31 seconds.

Buthe’s district title was a breakthrough of sorts for the heavyweight. He just missed out on state bids the previous two years with third place finishes. The junior left no doubt this year with a pair of sub-minute pins of Harlan’s Jaspyr Nielsen in the semifinals and Creston’s Gunner Martwick in the finals.

Black (120) reach stated for the third time in his career and avenged a pair of regular season losses with a 9-4 win over Atlantic’s Keaton Schroeder in the finals while doing it.

“He got a last second reversal and some big points,” Weber said. “He probably had one of the toughest weight classes. There were four kids that were worthy of going in that weight and he really stepped it up.”

Cochrane (106) also avenged an earlier loss to Atlantic’s Dayton Van Horn. Cochrane, a freshman, earned a technical fall over Van Horn in the finals to punch his ticket to state.

“He’s had some battles with that kid, and he went out and just dominated him,” Weber said.

Aust (190), who missed several weeks with a hamstring injury suffered before Christmas was back to 100 percent for districts and punched his second straight trip to state despite having wrestled just 12 matches this season.

All the guys that qualified obviously looked good,” Weber said. “You’ve got to wrestle well to make it to state.”

The Rams’ Leick (46-2), Koehler (47-1) and Buthe (48-4) all earned top eight seeds and first round byes at state. Glenwood will have four wrestlers going in the first round, lead off by Cochrane (43-7) making his state debut against Clarke’s Angel Gomez-Perez (33-12). 

Brody Black (41-14), making this third straight trip to state, faces off against Grinnell’s Eli Peiffer (29-22.

Lundvall (43-10) opens against Humboldt’s Tate Halverson (25-19) and Aust (5-7) will meet Eagle Grove’s Jayden Kreitlow (43-11).

Weber didn’t celebrate the Rams’ district performance long. 

“We’re already studying film, coming up with a game plan so we can all be as successful as we can at that first match,” he said. I” know we’ve got four guys wrestling in that first round. And then three top 8 seeds, which they get a bye and get to watch their opponent in that first round and see what they need to do to beat them.”

Class 2A Districts

Team Results

1. Glenwood, 202.5. 2. Atlantic, 184.5. 3. Creston, 132. 4. Winterset, 117.5. 5. Harlan, 109. 6. Shenandoah, 79. 7. Red Oak, 65. 8. Clarinda, 18.

State Qualifiers

106: 1. Ace Cochrane, Glenwood. 2. Dayton Van Horn, Atlantic. 113: 1. Sebastian Brooks, Winterset. 2. Izic Zarate, Red Oak. 120: 1. Brody Black, Glenwood. 2. Keaton Schroeder, Atlantic. 126: 1. Joseph Leick, Glenwood. 2. Judah Gurwell, Winterset. 132: 1. Braxton Hass, Atlantic. 2. Cade Harlan, Winterset. 138: 1. Lane Travis, Creston. 2. Landon Hagen, Atlantic. 144: 1. Hayden Roush, Shenandoah. 2. Jayse Jensen, Winterset. 150: 1. Jayden Harter, Atlantic. 2. Dayton Gusman, Red Oak. 157: 1. Chayton Snethen, Harlan. 2. Jose Avila, Creston. 165: 1. Jacob McGargill, Shenandoah. 2. Jax Jensen, Winterset. 175: 1. Nile Lundvall, Glenwood. 2. Dreven Smith, Atlantic. 190: Donovan Hedrington, Atlantic. 2. Jacob Aust, Glenwood. 215: 1. Mason Koehler, Glenwood. 2. Travin Thomas, Atlantic. 285: 1. Drake Buthe, Glenwood. 2. Gunner Martwick, Creston.